


You Are My Sunshine

by SpicySannd



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Developing Relationship, Dream SMP War, It's them... But in a minecraft world... AU..., M/M, Mild Gore, One Shot, Slow Burn, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:08:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26394670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpicySannd/pseuds/SpicySannd
Summary: George finds himself nodding gently as his eyes fall shut once again. “I will fight by your side dream, always,” the brunet promises, and warm lips merely brush his cheek, as if they never were there in the first place. The older swallows, and he feels empty with what will come.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 30
Kudos: 208





	You Are My Sunshine

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfiction is purely fictional and does in no way intend for slander. In the event any of the youtubers included in this fic claim to feel uncomfortable with this story, or Dream and George feel uncomfortable with shipping, the fic will be taken down immediately. 
> 
> Not proof-read, prepare for possible spelling mistakes or something else. The fic may or may not be edited later.
> 
> Without further ado, please sit back and enjoy the ride.

An icy feeling washes over George like a wave from the ocean, violently crashing into spiky dark cliffs by the shore, the water creeping inside his mouth and down his dry throat until it squeezes his lungs from air. His breath is almost gone, deadly silent, and he automatically grips his wooden bow tighter within his cold grasp. It’s a no man’s land as each of the opposites stare down one another.

Wilbur’s mouth moves, but George can’t make out what he’s saying as his ears ring, several of his friends stand in front of him, with the same determined and proudful expression they share with their leader. The reality that those people were the same men he laughed and told stories with, now pointing their swords at them, at him, was tough to swallow.

Yet, as Dream’s masked face turns to the brunet, he let the very same kind of determination seep into his veins as he lifts his bow. His eyes close and he inhales calmly before letting a lit arrow fly through the air, and it lands exactly where it should, calculated, in the small pile of dynamite at the open gate to L’manburg. Dream carefully pushes him and Sapnap a few steps back from the lit pile upon the explosion. Their newfound enemies copy their move, and George can see arrogance and confidence glint faintly in their eyes.

He knows Dream is cheering in his heart when their smirks are roughly wiped off their expressions by surprise as the ground underneath them tremble violently and explodes. It’s a small victory for them, but all George feels is cold as he stares over at their enemies, eyes squinting as dust and fine sand rain down over them, and the Gate along with most of the terrain has been blown to smithereens. The water in his lungs freeze over in a faint realization as something akin to dread has nested within the veins of his heart, as it beats louder and slightly faster.

It has begun.

-

_“It’s unbelievable how much we’ve grown over the years,” Dream ponders out loud as he lets his arms rest on the fence, and he looks out. George is fairly certain he’s just looking out on their village, their home. The brunet is also confident that he’s only talking about how the village has grown, with not only buildings but with people too. However, as George looks over at his best friend, the iconic mask missing, laying somewhere forgotten, the brunet can’t help but wonder if Dream means them too. The days of nearly freezing to death, nearly getting brutally slaughtered by whatever monsters that viewed them as prey, and nearly dying of hunger, being long behind them. How, they together built their own safe space with their bare hands and can now properly call it home without uncertainty laced in their subconsciousness._

_“It almost feels like a fairytale, this much happiness and comfort should be illegal,” the dirty blond chuckles. George sighs with a content smile dancing on the edges of his mouth as he leans over the fence next to the blond and looks out on the village as well._

_“Fairytales are stupid and unrealistic, Dream, and trying to live in them is just dangerous,” George gently lectures, the words sounding harsh, but it only brings out a barking laugh from his friend._

_“That’s the difference between you and I, George. That has always been the difference.”_

_“What, that you sit on your bed and pretend it’s a throne and play king, while I wake up early every single day to gather wood and food for the village and work myself into the ground until nighttime?”_

_“Hey- you’re making it sound like I do nothing around here! I do just as much as you and more on top of it,” the blond wheezes out, and the other’s laugh gently takes hold around the brunet’s heart as it warms his body from top to toe. Fairytale or not, they’re both standing next to each other, but it’s the reality of that fact that keeps George smiling._

George lets his fingertips brush against the fence, barely registering the feel of splinters and wood on his skin as he lets the somber memory replay over and over in his mind. The cloudy skies above him chokes any sunlight from the sunset in utter darkness.

The brunet easily picks up the vague sound of footsteps behind him, and he can almost guess who it is as he gently leans over the fence, once again staring out at the horizon like he has so many times before when he needed space to think and room to breathe.

“George, do you remember when you told me; you and I don’t get to have a happy ending?” Dream lets out softly behind him, and George’s lips shift into a thin line, not having the right mindset to speak or think, as everything around him only seems to become more still.

“I don’t think you do, or, I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t, you were bleeding to death and on the brink of passing out several times after all, and it was a long time ago as well.”

The brunet listens carefully to each word, as if they were the sweetest melody of a siren. A melody that holds so much potential power, it could crush George and leave him to be nothing but dust and ash as his existence would come to cease, but instead caresses his soul with a gentle nature that George hasn’t figured out how to handle yet.

George feels a small tug on his sleeve and he barely lets a thought register as he leans away from the fence and lets his body and heart move on muscle memory as it turns to the blond, and he’s standing right there, so close the brunet can almost sense the warmth radiating from the other. Brown eyes slowly glide upwards with each careful flutter of dark eyelashes until his gaze softly locks with passionate, green eyes.

“We almost died,” Dream nearly whispers, yet his voice still loud enough for George to soak in. The dirty blond leans in and George meets him somewhere as their foreheads connect, soft brown locks mixing with a darker shade of blond, both part natural color and the unforgettable dust cloud that chased them as proof of the declaration of war from earlier that day when the sun had just risen.

His eyelids fall shut while he basks in their intimacy. “I think I cried. We had a lot of close calls before, but I was so sure in that moment we wouldn’t make it. And you told me, with this little smile on your bloody lips, that we just weren’t meant for happy endings.”

George almost wants to bark out a fragile laugh, not confident if doing so would arouse another overwhelming emotion he’s been trying to contain all day. He kind of desires to just stop existing, to escape all this sudden noise around them that makes the older male want to crawl out of his skin with pure desperation lighting every nerve.

They lean closer to each other, George isn’t sure how that’s even possible, as he thought they were already practically fusing into one being. Something rustles by his side, and then warm, steady fingers trail comforting circles into his jaw that calls forth a calm sensation that George only desires to drown in.

“But it was also in that moment, I got the strongest desire I’ve ever had before, to prove you wrong, George,” Dream recites softly and George lets a windy chuckle escape from him that leads the dirty blond to smile, “I wanted to fight for your happy ending, _our_ happy ending.”

“Why are you telling me this?” George exhales shakily, and finally opens his eyes to once again connect with soft green that have the ability to reach his soul and very being.

Their noses almost touch, and the brunet’s cheek almost burns from his best friend’s warm strokes across his cheekbone, the blond’s longer hair strands tickling against his forehead like weightless feathers. “That desire still hasn’t changed,” the younger answered, “I won’t let what we’ve grown wither, I won’t allow it. We’ll be okay.”

George feels the fire burning in Dream’s words, dripping with molten lava that would tear through anything in its path, he sees the embers sparkling in those green orbs looking back at him, and he has no doubt that Dream means every word.

George finds himself nodding gently as his eyes fall shut once again. “I will fight by your side dream, always,” the brunet promises, and warm lips merely brush his cheek, as if they never were there in the first place. The older swallows, and he feels empty with what will come.

-

A lot happens, and George doesn’t bother counting the days as the change of season informs him how much time has passed. A sheet of snow now covers the normally green landscape, but it is far from pure white, as evidence of struggle lay as historic footprints in the icy blanket. Dirt, blood, ashes. The landscape is dead, and the days are becoming colder and rougher to fight in with blizzards banging on the front door.

War changes people. It shouldn’t be much of a surprise to George, yet some of the things he had to experience still manages to baffle him in one way or another. They now have the addition of Eret on their side, having proved the people of L’manburg to feel unsteady on their feet and with one another. Now, as another blizzard rages with howling winds and sharp ice cutting through the air with high speed, they all wait with anticipation.

George is sitting by his wooden desk, the candle at his side flickering every once in a while, as if a part of the aggressive December wind had somehow slithered inside the building. He’s trying to finish up the map of the newly dug underground tunnels that secretly reaches everywhere underneath their village, when Dream barges into his room.

The brunet almost spills his ink everywhere at the sudden commotion, as his gaze lands on the dirty blond, moving further into his space with what looks to be heavy logs of wood on his shoulder. The damned white mask rests on the blond’s face, so George really has little to no idea what sort of expression his friend is burdened with as Dream fills up the empty fireplace with wood and proceeds to light it on fire.

George wants to say something, but as his mouth opens to attempt exactly that, he finds his voice to be gone and his mind blank. He tries to think, tries to paint his feelings of frustration into words. Why are they tip-toeing around one another? Why does it hurt so much? What is Dream thinking?

Yet, it’s too late. By the time George is only beginning to find his voice, the door has already been shut. His voice is immediately gone once again, and so is Dream.

-

“Dream has changed,” George mutters and he breathes warm air into his hands, the watch tower being much colder in the air compared to their comfort on the ground. Despite spring beginning to bloom through the ugly snow, it does little to help their temperature struggles, or the aesthetics of their land for that matter.

Sapnap leans against a stone pillar and looks over at George with a sarcastic smile pulling at his lips, “Oh really, George? Wherever did you get that idea.”

The older groans a curse word under his breath as he focuses his gaze on the horizon for any enemy targets.

Silence washes over them for a moment, nothing tense, but nothing comfortable either. The kind of silence they share as friends, who are tired, and bears the burden of holding one another alive.

“He’s become impatient…” Sapnap breaks the silence with a sigh. “And power hungry too.”

George frowns and rests his elbows on the edge of the watch window as he stares out at the dead terrain. “At this point, it seems like it would have been better to just give them their bloody independence,” the older feels a snarl crawling at the back of his throat but forces his tone to remain neutral.

The raven beside him only gives out a faint chuckle, but George has trouble seeing the funny of the situation.

“I don’t know if this war will end good for either sides,” the brunet admits with a melancholy pang in his chest.

“You might be right abou- oh woah, hey, George, your hand is bleeding buddy,” the younger rushes out with a slightly tan finger pointed at him. George raises an eyebrow as he looks down to his hand gripping the edge of the obsidian stone, and surely to his surprise, blood is splattered everywhere on the edge.

“Oh, I probably cut myself on the obsidian stones, I didn’t even feel it,” he stated with a puzzled expression.

“Please go and get that fixed up, I can manage the rest of the shift until Punz and Eret will cover for the night,” the raven states. George gives him a silent thank you as he clutches his hand close to his chest while he travels across land to their base.

He immediately feels much warmer as he enters the building, and he’s practically almost running with how fast his feet moves. Don’t bump into Dream, don’t bump into Dream, don’t-

George feels something block his way in the long hall, and it’s only now the brunet realizes his eyes had fallen shut upon his empty praying. As brown eyes spring open to take in the obstacle in his way, George quickly feels his heart sink upon knowing who he bumped into.

“George? What’s the rush?” the deep voice that sounds like warm honey laces with concern as he looks over his friend. The brunet, and he really does, tries to hide his hand, but Dream is far from an idiot. If anything, he might even be the smartest among them all, the sharpest knife in the cupboard, as he gently grasps around George’s thin wrist, and brings the clutched hand up for him to see. George lets it fall open in defeat, yet his mind is screaming with anxiety, high alert as if Dream was the enemy. Get away, get away, he doesn’t want to talk with Dream right now, God-

“George! You’re bleeding! What happened, are you okay? What about Sapna-“

“Dream, Dream! It’s okay, it’s alright. I just cut my hand on the obsidian in the watch tower. There’s been no attack, no nothing.” Even though Dream hadn’t actually said anything about the concern of an attack, George knows him too well, even if he currently feels like he doesn’t know this distant man in front of him whatsoever.

Dream appears to calm down from his tensed-up position. They stand awkwardly for what feels like several minutes, Dream not seeming to want to let go of the older’s wrist, and that white mask. George absolutely despises it as it shields the blond’s emotions away in protection.

Then Dream suddenly gently tugs George in the direction he was already headed for, neither one speaking up and George follows like an empty-headed sheep.

They end up in the storage hall, predictable, but Dream insists on cleaning the wound in his hand, and George is left powerless to his demands as he watches, and occasionally winces every now and then as his wound stings.

The awkward silence hasn’t exactly faded, but it’s not as visibly thick as before. Something else pulls over them that George isn’t sure he could describe in the correct way. It’s something quiet, something cold, as if something is missing, and George is confident that Dream feels it too.

“There.” The hand is all bandaged up, the pressure of the cloth grounding George in a way he needs, the only comfort he has, but the dirty blond doesn’t let go of his wrist.

Surprise is the only emotion he identifies within himself, when Dream moves to remove the white mask from his face, his eyes widen slightly, but George stresses to keep it under control so the other doesn’t notice anything. Dream overall, looks the same. His skin appears to be a little whiter, probably from his mask shielding him all the time but also the fact that winter has hidden the sun away for the most time.

However, George feels like it’s been ages since he has really _seen_ Dream. He may not have changed much physically, but his eyes are a colder green that have lost their glint. They are the eyes of a man who has witnessed and done things, terrible things. They are not the eyes of the person who spoke about silly fairytales and laughed together with his friends as they mined together, hunted for food together, lived.

Dream doesn’t live anymore, he only survives.

The younger man stares down at his bandaged hand, his expression neutral, but George senses his distress. The blond moves his hand up to his face, and George feels butterflies flap in his stomach and shivers down his spine as Dream’s lips softly meets the side of his hand, just at his thumb where the skin is exposed.

The gesture leaves George out of breath and with a dry throat as the soft lips brush downwards over his pulse, where the brunet’s frantic heartbeat is fully exposed, and George almost feels vulnerable.

“I miss you,” Dream chokes out, almost angry, sad, but doesn’t let any other emotion show on his face other than a small frown. “I’m really sorry, George.” The younger looks down at the brunet with guilt plastered across his face, and George can hear it in the sad melody of his tone. The brunet isn’t sure who lungs after the other first, but all that matters is that George is now in Dream’s embrace as he soaks up the other’s scent and warmth he’s been walking without, fighting without for so long. He distantly hears Dream apologize over and over in his ear, but he blocks it out as he focuses on the feel of the one he adores under his skin. He doesn’t know when he’ll feel it again.

-

“IT’S AN AMBUSH, RETREAT!” Sapnap roars, and George reacts just in time when somebody jumps out of the tree above him, rolling away with his blood and flesh intact as the enemy accidentally forces their sword into the ground beneath them where George was standing a second ago.

All sign of snow was gone, which meant a certain amount of animals would return, but they had to travel far away from their base as the burned down and ruined landscape wasn’t in the right condition for living regarding animals. They were extremely short on food.

Turns out the people of L’manburg saw this as a great opportunity to force the upper hand over them.

George had trouble focusing on Sapnap and Punz, although he was sure in his heart that they would be fine. His attacker remained persistent on bringing George’s downfall to reality and George was quickly getting dizzy from feeling malnourished and rapidly dodging the netherite sword of his opponent.

The brunet turns to run through the forest, any prey long gone from the chaotic battlefield that has been created around them, and George’s eyes frantically searches for something on the meadow floor he can defend himself with, but he doubts he could win over the other with flowers and grass.

He quickly turns to run back to the spot he escaped from. He had a bow and a diamond sword that he had dropped from his hands from pure shock upon his attacker leaping at him from the air.

George spots them immediately, laying in the grass, however the wooden bow has been snapped in half like a twig, which probably was a result of his attacker landing on it, but the diamond sword lay completely unharmed.

With quickly reflexes, George sweeps low to grab the handle of the sword, and he turns to meet his enemy dead in the eyes as he stretches forward with all his might. The sword pierces deep into mushy flesh and organs. But his enemy’s sword pierces through as well.

It’s a shame George wasn’t fast enough.

Brown locks that had grown slightly longer during winter falls into his eyes, as his gaze locks with his opponent. A furious pair of eyes challenge him through sweaty brown curls, as none other than Wilbur himself twists the sword in his grip around, making George whimper out in pain, yet he grits his teeth together and pulls the same exact move on the other.

“Where’s your leader, huh, George? Did he send you out to do his dirty work as usually?” the other male spits angrily. “It won’t end well for you George, working for somebody like that.”

“I don’t know what exactly you’re trying to pull here Wilbur, but I’m not leaving Dream’s side,” George fires back and they both stand stubbornly as the grass beneath them quickly disappears in a puddle of dark blood.

“We despise you, all we wanted was freedom,” the other brunet bristles, so unnatural from Wilbur’s natural calm composure, but George supposes that it’s not unheard of that he would change a little, given the hardships they have faced. Betrayal, hurt, and something akin to a dim fire that’s nearly gone, but continuously burns with all its might, shines through Wilbur’s whole being.

“You don’t get it, do you?” George pants, corners of his vision swimming with darkness he attempts to force away with whatever energy he has left. “I don’t care if there is a bad guy, and I don’t care if we’re it.”

George grips around the handle of his sword with determination and stares dead into Wilbur’s eyes with empty eyes. “I will stand by Dream and what he chooses until I die.”

The older swiftly retracts his sword, which leaves the other brunet unprepared as George pierces him again a little higher up and much deeper with more force intended, which causes a small waterfall of blood to rush from Wilbur’s lips. George is much closer to the other now, and Wilbur lets a bloody hand fall forcefully on George’s shoulder as he nearly hangs all his weight on his skinny frame. Bloody lips lean in close to his ear with tiny coughs.

“Then you will die along with the green bastard.”

George doesn’t say anything as he pushes the taller man off of him, and as expected, he tilts back and connects harshly with the bloody ground, passed out. The standing brunet doesn’t think about removing his sword from the body, which he wasn’t even that sure was alive either.

The older brunet barely has any time to think before adrenaline slowly leaves his body, leaving him with agony and exhaustion as he too falls to the ground, Wilbur’s sword still deep inside him. He fights with all he has left as he shifts to sit up against the nearest tree trunk as he waits.

But wait for what? The inevitable painful departure as his soul ascends to another realm? Or whatever it was people liked to believe to happen after death. Was he waiting for his friends to come back and look for him? He didn’t even know whether his friends were still alive or not.

George isn’t given much time to ponder as he too passes out, exhaustion covering him like a thick blanket he cannot escape.

-

He wakes up, and he’s much more alive than he expected he would be after the ambush.

His awareness of sounds and people around him are slightly blurry, but he easily makes out the white blob figure with raven hair beside his bed to be Sapnap.

He knows the other is speaking, he can hear his voice, but George is floating in a tunnel, so far away from everything.

Sapnap leaves, but another figure replaces his place beside the brunet’s bed. A warm hand slithers into George’s, but he once again feels the world float further away from him as he passes out in what feels like a dark, quiet abyss.

-

The next time his eyes fall open, everything is instantly much clearer.

He’s also not alone.

The first thing George registers is the warmth of fingers intertwined with his skeletal ones, and It comforts him in a strange way he doesn’t understand.

“George?” a raspy voice rings throughout the room like an echo. George rolls his head to the side to glance at Dream, holding tightly onto the brunet’s hand as if he were to disappear if the blond let go.

“George, can you hear me?” the blond smiles fondly at him, and the brunet’s heart squeezes as he hums in confirmation.

“Can you see me properly?” another hum.

“Are you in pain?”

The brunet stares at his friend with a deadpan look, in which Dream can’t help but chuckle at.

They fall into a comfortable silence as George rests his eyes and soaks up the contact of Dream drawing comforting circles into his hand.

“Wilbur is dead.”

Everything stills around them. Every fine dust seems to have halted as George let the words sink in slowly and painfully. Dream doesn’t bother adding to the story, the brunet is well aware of who the cause was, and the only thing he can do is take a deep breath, his eyes opening but now fixated on the ceiling above him.

“Do you regret starting this war, Clay?” George asks, voice fragile, shaking, maybe from how much power that question holds. He feels the other’s gaze on him, intense with all different kinds of emotions.

“No,” the dirty blond answers, and George feels the truth of them, he doesn’t understand, but he doesn’t need to.

With little strength, George’s fingers twitch as they bring the younger’s hand close to his cheek, eyes closing as he feels so many sensations that he can’t put into words.

He smiles. “Then I don’t regret anything I’ve done.”

And those words are as true as who his heart beats for.

George quickly learns that the first time he woke up, it had merely been around twenty-four hours after the attack, which explains why his mind had been so messed up from what the brunet could remember. The next time he woke up had almost been a week after the incident.

Recovery is slow, but he’s been told time and again that he was lucky Wilbur missed any of his important organs such as his lungs, which George had apparently successfully sliced into upon his second pierce, which automatically had caused Wilbur to die from lack of oxygen. He doesn’t necessarily regret what he did, but he felt uneasy at how brutal their very last encounter ended up. Hearing the details almost made George want to vomit, and if there were any other gruesome details, George had luckily been spared from them.

Things move slowly from there, and George’s chores have been lifted from his daily life, which the brunet felt terrible about, but Dream insisted that George received complete rest during his recovery.

Yet, George feels nothing but anxiety creep around his chest as he hears nothing about their situation with L’manburg, he sees nothing. He can’t really walk either, so he hasn’t been much outside. George knows he’s being kept out of the loop on purpose, and it eats him up.

The only good thing that came out of the situation, is how much time he spends with Dream now. The blond is much more affectionate, much more like his old self, but it doesn’t sit right with George as he knows the blond is still getting over the shock of having almost lost George for good. Yet, the brunet selfishly swims in the attention, Dream’s laughter and smiles, and whatever it is they have silently agreed to become.

“Okay listen, I’ll come back with dinner tonight, and we can eat together, _but I have to go hunting right now,_ George! Sapnap and I have reported return of a wild boar herd, we _canno_ t let meat like that slip through our fingers,” Dream wheezes, but George continuous to cling to him for a little while longer, as they share pure laughter and happiness in their little safe space.

“Okay fine,” George sighs and lets the blond out of his grasp. Dream then crouches down to kiss George’s hair, but George barely has any time to relish in their affectionate gestures before Dream is waving goodbye to him by the door.

The brunet’s attention shifts around the room in slight boredom, but then he spots the iconic mask that Dream has left behind, laying forgotten on the small table next to his bed.

George rolls his eyes as he picks it up and marches towards the storage hall, which he knew Dream would stop by to gear up for hunting first. His feet aren’t very steady, but he easily manages as he slides against the stone wall.

“It’s going to be a bloodbath,” a voice mutters, which George immediately identifies to be Eret. George quietly turns in the other direction and sneaks around until he hides just before the corridor turns, the atmosphere seeming a bit too suspicious to let be.

“What, they are… Fundy, Tubbo and Tommy right? It won’t be that bad,” another voice cuts in, Punz.

“Wilbur was a big loss for them, it will be brutal tomorrow.” And they both continue to mutter to one another as they move further away from George, until he is left alone with his thoughts and interpretation swarming his brain with questions.

His heart hammers violently against his chest. George doesn’t understand what they’re talking about, he doesn’t _know_.

What bloodbath? What about tomorrow? What piece of the puzzle is George missing?

The brunet nearly jumps out of his skin as two hands grab at his shoulders and gently turns him around. It’s Dream, arrows holstered across his back and armor sealed tight around his chest, looking ready as ever for going out.

“George? What are you doing out of bed? Is that my mask? You shouldn’t have gone after me, I noticed it was gone as soon as I passed by a mirror,” the taller male smiles easily, having no clue of the conflict and betrayal pounding at his chest, his heart sinking all the way down into his stomach acid.

George only stares with wide eyes.

“George?” the blond tries again, and the brunet starts shaking.

“You- what,” the smaller male stutters, and he desperately grasps after words as realization slowly begins to settle.

George pushes Dream away, almost stumbling himself as he clings to the wall. “What the hell, George!” the other male exclaimed, green eyes just as confused as his own.

“I should be saying that! What’s that about tomorrow?” the older hissed back. The blond’s eyes widen for a fraction of a second before returning to their normal state. George isn’t sure if Dream thinks he noticed or not, but the brunet is much sharper than he appears. He isn’t an archer for nothing in the end.

“I knew you were keeping something from me,” George nearly whispers, voice cracking in the middle of the sentence with devastation pouring out of him, and the other’s unusual silence, tense stance and fiddling with his fingers only further proves George’s suspicion. The brunet turns to march back into his room, stubbornly not willing to turn around to the blond’s cries.

“George, please, let me expla-“

“You could have explained it all to me before you made any plans. It doesn’t matter now, does it? Whatever my opinion is on what you’re gonna do, it doesn’t matter,” the shorter male bites out, and he kind of wants to see the expression of the other as his words cuts into him with guilt dripping off of them like poison.

They end up exactly back where they started, the morning coziness tainted with bitterness roaming the air. George had tried to shut the door in the blond’s face, but Dream is even more stubborn than George, as they now stand and stare at each other in the room, emotions complete opposites as the brunet fumes and Dream looks at him with apologetic emerald orbs.

“You do matter, George, you matter _so much_ , that’s why we won’t allow you to throw you into something like this in your current condition,” Dream confesses.

George looks away, his angry gaze directed at a random dot on the wooden floor.

“And what is ‘something like this’?” the brunet demands to know.

Dream remains silent for a few seconds, perhaps thinking carefully over his next words to not enrage the older male further.

“Tomorrow will be the final confrontation, us against them,” is all Dream provides to George’s many questions.

George knew it, his unspoken theories correct, but hearing it, confirmed by Dream himself, sets off a spark of anger that the brunet doesn’t know how to handle as it slowly overwhelms him.

“You’re an idiot, Clay. I can’t believe you would do something like this, you fucking idiot,” George bristles. If the brunet didn’t feel so weak, he would have moved over to hit the dirty blond with all his might. He would have deserved each kick and punch coming his way for doing something so stupid, for agreeing to something so idiotic.

“Why?” George cries out, tears evolving quickly into small puddles running down his cheeks. “You’ll get killed!”

“Or we kill them,” the blond spits back, “You don’t understand George! _I_ have put all of you through this, I’m the real reason you’re hurt, George. I almost _lost_ you! I can’t stand by any longer and tip toe around our enemies.

“Have you forgotten what we fight for, Clay?!” The brunet almost chokes on a sob. “You don’t start a war and forget why you started it in the first place!”

Dream steps a little forward, his expression becoming more desperate, a hint of anger splayed across the surface. Maybe directed at George. Maybe at L’manburg, or maybe even himself, or everyone. George can’t tell anymore.

“I have never forgotten why we fight. We fight for our happy ending.”

“Do you even hear yourself? Our happy ending is yours too Dream. Your happy ending, or whatever the fuck you want to call it. That includes you, having you alive, here with us. With me,” the brunet finishes quietly, the weight of those words sinking in. “We fight for you, Clay.”

Dream swallows, and it’s deeply audible. George knows his words are affecting the other.

A piercing silence falls over them like a thick fog. Dream isn’t even looking at him anymore, and George knows he reached checkmate when he speaks his next words.

The brunet walks up to the blond and embraces him, but it’s cold, even as they physically share body warmth with one another.

“I know you’re not fighting for us anymore,” George whispers in his ear, and leans back to look up at other who now stares down at him with wide, unblinking eyes. Horrified. Speechless. George almost pities him.

“But it’s okay. In the end, I will always stand by you no matter what, Clay.” George gives the taller male a tired smile, and they fall into yet another embrace, and they cling to each other like it’s the last time they will ever have the chance to do so.

From over Dream’s shoulder, George stares into the void as his hand clings to the back of Dream’s cloak. He has a bad feeling.

He’s had a bad feeling since everything started.

-

Dawn rolls over the hills too fast, the night had been gone in what felt like an instant.

Barely any words are exchanged between George and Dream. Every little touch between them is gentle and slow, time barely seeming to move as the morning continuous, and George can’t do anything to stop the day from overtaking.

Only when Dream stands before him, along with Sapnap, Eret and Punz, full armor on display that makes each of their features appear sharper, more dangerous, George feels small. Unimportant. Vulnerable.

Everything feels so wrong, the anxiety boils just underneath the brunet’s snow-white skin, but it’s useless to resist now, to fight what was truly the inevitable.

George wants to hope, but he’s more realistic than that.

“Please,” the older pleads softly, his pinky holding onto Dream’s finger, but George doesn’t even know what he’s pleading for anymore.

Dream offers him a sympathetic look as he comes to lean over the shorter male. Breath ghosts over his lips as they both shuffle closer. Lips, rosy and chapped, just gently connects, innocent and pure as their love. Desire, the graze of silky tongue shortly meeting on their paths before they part. It’s an unspoken goodbye, an untold confession, a buried apology.

The atmosphere around them had never before been so silent before upon their departure.

They’re gone.

George feels empty.

He has little to no idea how long ago they left, and he supposes it doesn’t really matter anymore.

_“Do you believe in happy endings, Eret?” George questions the other brunet. Eret takes another bite out of his apple before throwing its corpse away into the forest._

_“Happy endings? Like what, those you hear about in fairytales?” the other male raises his eyebrow carefully at his own words. George only gives a hum as confirmation as he continuous to pick berries from several of the surrounding bushes._

_“Nah, fairytales aren’t real. This is real life dude. Happiness isn’t guaranteed here. You should know that better than anyone,” Eret casually states before being interrupted by his line of thought by a yawn._

_“I should, shouldn’t I,” George whispers to himself, but all he hears is Dream’s silly wheeze echo through his mind. He can’t help but smile._

Something echoes down the hall, knocking George violently out of his reminiscing. Any other person may have ignored it, blaming it to be an object falling to the floor or something similar. George is, however, much smarter than that.

George stands from his bed to grab his sword, slowly stalking through the base to investigate further as he limps through the corridors and halls with careful, quiet steps.

Just as George is about to turn somewhere new, something hits him. Or, is hit the right word he wants to use? It’s more like a violent sting, as if somebody stabbed him and left the knife hanging within his flesh and muscles.

The brunet turns around, calm, and he isn’t sure what he expects to find, but it certainly wasn’t this.

A much smaller boy than George stands a good few meters away from him, a crossbow in hand that is visibly shaking, and George can almost guess what exactly ‘hit’ him in his shoulder.

The older male comes to the quick realization that the boy is Tubbo, and it almost stuns him how much the boy has grown since the last time he saw him, the younger usually being more hidden in the background plans rather than at the front lines of brutal attacks.

“Don’t move,” the teenager manages to breathe out between tightly clenched teeth, angry tears streaming down his face

“Drop your weapon,” the boy further demands, and George can only comply as he throws his weapon out of his reach.

“Tubbo, don’t do anything you’ll regret,” the older male tries to reason, but it only serves to be the complete opposite effect of what he had hoped.

“Oh yeah? Why would I ever regret killing the man who murdered Wilbur in cold blood?” the boy angrily pushes.

“It was only self-defense, I never meant for Wilbur to die, but I can’t say the same for him,” George muttered, letting the incident replay in his mind, a scar on his heart that would never fully heal.

“It was him or me, Tubbo,” George explains truthfully. Tubbo hiccups, lips trembling, and George can sense the other’s rapid breathing.

But Tubbo sighs forcefully as he aims the crossbow a little higher, directed right towards the older brunet as pure hatred seeps through his whole being.

“Then, it should have been you.”

The younger fiddles with sharp motions on the crossbow, and as George picks up the sound of a familiar clicking noise, he closes his eyes as he defies looking in the eyes of death.

But George feels no pain, he only hears violent rustling that leads George to open his eyes in confusion. He is met with a brutal sight as Eret swiftly knocks Tubbo’s head into the wall from behind, clearly not hard enough to do any other damage than just temporarily knock him out, the crossbow dropped and forgotten, and God know where.

“Eret? Why are you here? How did you know I was in trouble?” George rushes out, questions piling as Eret merely brushes off dust from his jacket sleeves, netherite sword shining in his hand.

“Is there trouble on the battlefield? Or… did you guys already finish?” George’s eyes widen at the theory, the question ending on a hopeful register, but he doesn’t dare start believing something before he knows it to be truth.

“So noisy,” the other brunet grumbles under his breath, and George isn’t in the right mind to understand if the other male is messing with him or not.

Eret turns to the older brunet sharply and calmly walks over to him. Something tells George, that something is off. Like how the brunet can just tell there’ll be thunder from sensing the weather outside, and Eret walks up to him like a thundering force that reeks of something uneasy.

They come to stand right in front of each other, and a bony hand finds itself home upon George’s shoulder.

“I actually have a question for _you_.” Eret smiles, and all of George’s nerves are on fire, screaming at the brunet in confusion, as he can only watch the next move of his friend.

“Do you believe in happy endings, George?” Eret asks. Innocent, familiar. But George should have been quicker to notice as something shiny moves swiftly out of the corner of his eye,

Eret’s gentle grip turns into a clawing grasp as he holds the brunet in place and dives the netherite sword into his stomach, unable to coordinate correctly where exactly it has stabbed him, but he knows this, it hurts much more than the first time he tried this.

George drops to the ground with a yell. Nonexistent flames lick at his wound with such power, he can’t help the tears that escapes from the corners of his eyes. First when the brunet clutches at his own wound, he can feel something sticky, stinging, and he knows the sword had been calculatingly laced with poison. This wasn’t something Dream had done from home, no.

Eret had planned this on his own.

“You guys, are pathetic to watch. All of you,” the other brunet barks out in a laugh so sinister, goosebumps break out from George’s skin unwillingly.

“Why?” George coughs out, and the familiar taste of iron fills his mouth as he coughs and splutters. He tries to hold his gaze onto Eret, who smirks down at him with amuse dancing in his eyes.

“Why? _Why?_ What, you people actually thought I was on _your_ side? On _anyone’s_ side?” Eret grins, and George gives up meeting his challenged gaze as he clenches his eyes shut in utter pain.

“See, while you guys were playing kings and soldiers all day on the playground, I was playing God. The thing is, I don’t actually care about any of you whatsoever,” he muses, “I’m just here to have fun and watch you all tear down each other like the _animals you’ve become_.”

“We trusted you, Eret!” George yells out but is quickly interrupted by a bloody cough that sends splatters of dark blood across the floor.

“And so did they. Bad move, but then again, you can’t really blame me all that much. War changes people, you know.”

George breathes out with determination as he forcefully brings his eyes back open, this time, willing to stare in the face of death and betrayal. He finds Eret to be crouching down to his level, a little away from him, the smile of a maniac painted upon his lips. “I mean, who would have thought, that Dream himself, would become this _monster_ , along with the people of L’manburg. Thirsty after blood!”

The smile disappears a little, but amusement shines through him like the sun. “You have all forgotten why you started this war. Now, it’s only a matter of who wins and who dies. A matter of killing each other.”

Eret’s head tilts, and he shuffles slightly closer.

“You people are getting predictable though, it’s not fun anymore, sadly, but let me tell you my plan.”

George’s attention peeks up, but it’s becoming more difficult to focus by the second, harder to breathe, as his vision becomes a little more blurry with every flutter of eyelashes.

“Look at me, George,” the younger demands, fingers move to carefully tip the bleeding brunet’s full attention towards him, as George can practically feel Eret’s breath reach him.

“I’m going back to the battlefield, George, and if Dream is still alive, I’ll kill him, while he’s all tired and weak from fighting. I’m going to kill all of them,” he whispers, like it’s a silly secret that George never could tell others.

Eret turns to stand up, the poisoned sword clinging against the stone floor as he moves to walk past George. The older doesn’t possess much energy, either bleeding out or the poison having stripped it completely away from him. Time moves slowly, eyes frantically search for any ideas, any hope.

He can’t let Eret be the possible death of Clay, he won’t allow it.

Brown eyes land on Tubbo’s crossbow, placed a couple of meters away from George, and it’s his only choice.

The brunet shifts from his side, onto his stomach, which sends painful jabs across his body, as he slides across the cold stone floor with his open wound. Arms shake, barely able to fight against gravity to pull him forward. Panic sends him into a small adrenaline spiral, as he moves faster, jaw tightly shut in agony. Pure determination is his only strength.

He reaches the crossbow, moves on his other side as he is faced with Eret’s back. The other male is opening the gates, and sunlight streams in along with fresh air and the smell of dew on grass.

He takes deadly aim.

“Long live the green bastard,” George breathes quietly, and he fires.

The arrow pierces the heart.

And he falls.

The sunlight is now able to flood the hall completely, George relishes in the golden warmth and the sound of birds chirping.

His breath consists of short exhales and stuttering inhales, and he thinks his hands start trembling as he moves onto his stomach. He rests in a sea of blood, the scene gruesome with George’s trail of blood evident like the full moon on a clear night, bloody handprints that were the result of clawing against stone and his wound painted cold stone as if it were a mere children’s painting.

Whatever focus he had restored for those few seconds that the brunet sampled to stop Eret, now melts away from his body. He grows cold and tired.

He doesn’t know if Dream is still alive, if any of them are still alive, and the older male would have wanted to scream out, to cry and yell, raise his fist against whatever force may be watching them, playing their lives like chess pieces, tipping over one after the other. He would have cried and demanded how unfair life had been to him and everyone surrounding him, if he hadn’t known from the start what he was getting himself into. If he hadn’t lived with the gut feeling, anxiety tearing at his mind and soul, living everyday like he expected it to be the last.

George’s attention shifts from the outside world shining upon him to his hand in front of him. Bloody, looking white as a sheet of paper.

He reaches out, but for what, he’s not sure. No one is coming to help him. No one can help him. He knows he’s bleeding out, and he feels so drained. So tired.

A smile spreads across his face as he faintly hears distant laughter in the air. Clay’s laughter. He blinks a couple of times before he finds himself to be standing. He’s outside, no wound apparent. He’s there, as he leans over the familiar face, and he enjoys the summer breeze pass him. And then he spots him.

The dirty blond is a mere few meters away from him, his hand, soft and strong, reaching out for him with a welcoming smile.

George blinks, and he faintly senses the cold floor, he knows he’s staring out of the gate, he should be. He sees it too, but somehow, when the brunet looks out at all the life going on in the distance, forest, the song of birds, grass waving in the wind, he only sees himself with Clay. He doesn’t even remember if it’s a memory, but why should he care at this point?

Clay is still, rooted to his spot. His hand looks so welcoming, so warm. The colors around them is only bland through George’s eyes, but somehow, everything looks much brighter. Clay’s smile, his eyes lighting up with a happiness, adoration. George wants to cry.

He puts his hand in the blond’s, and if a few tears escape his eyes, it no longer matters to him as he holds onto the other tightly.

-

Cold air makes bloody, blond hair rustle gently in the wind, lifeless fingers clutch at grass strands with a reached-out hand. Expression forever hidden in the dirt.

-

_“You and I, don’t get to have a happy ending.”_

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote all of this on impulse,,, :')


End file.
